The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

It’s been a wonderful and wild week! We’ve gotten some great exposure from a number of blogs, and learned a ton from both commenters posting on those sites as well as feedback from the many signups we’ve had. I’m thrilled to say Cocoon has been well received and held up well to the crush of traffic with only a few minor glitches being reported.

Shortly after Lifehacker posted about our launching, we also had a great review from switched-downloadsquad, and some great links from The Awesomer and a few others. People all around the world have signed up to use Cocoon.

Cocoon users world wide

What have we learned?

We’ve confirmed there is a demand for the features Cocoon is offering. And, the people who are trying out Cocoon have been terrific – even when reporting a problem people have been very positive and even excited about the product (Feedback offers the option of including your emotional state).

Cocoon Feedback

We did learn about a few issues we hadn’t seen before. After a year in beta there were still a couple of add-on conflicts we had not experienced and there was an issue with custom font sizes a few people had set within Firefox that Cocoon didn’t retain. The developers were able to fix those issues, we’re testing them now and we’ll be pushing an update early this week.

We’ve also learned people are passionate about their privacy. Comments on the blogs have shown people making the effort to read our privacy policy and comment on it. I’m glad to say we have heard your comments and are working at re-writing the policy to more accurately represent what our policies are, rather than what the lawyers say. I’m sure there will be some give and take on just how simple we can say this: “Our business it to protect your privacy. We do not share your data with anyone unless required by law. Inside Cocoon we do not track where you go or what you do online. Your data belongs to you. If you close your Cocoon account all your encrypted data is removed from the system.”  I’ll let you know how things shake out and post a link to the new policy as soon as it’s available.

In closing I want to say thank you to Lifehacker for helping us launch, and a special thank you to all the users who have signed up and are providing the feedback we need to grow and improve Cocoon. There are many new features and improvements coming – and if you’d like to be involved in testing them we’re looking for some advanced testers -  let me know via kris(at)cocoonemail.com.

Cocoon is beginning a limited rollout from beta and to mark the occasion we’re working with Lifehacker, a weblog focused on software and personal productivity shortcuts that help you work smarter and save time. We felt Lifehacker readers were perfectly suited to both appreciate Cocoon’s privacy, security and productivity features, and provide us with the feedback and suggestions we need to continue shaping Cocoon.

In addition to the free trial, for a limited time, users that sign up for Cocoon through the Lifehacker post will get Cocoon for only $3/mo. (regularly $6.95). And the best part? This special price never expires. As long as you have your user account, that’s the only price you’ll pay.

Cocoon has come a long way; kinks have been ironed out, features added and trimmed, and performance boosted. But, there’s still more to do. That’s where you come in. Your feedback will help shape Cocoon and make it the best it can be. We’ll listen closely and fine-tune the product, its performance, and its features. This is a huge opportunity to leave your mark on the service before the cement begins to cure.

For this launch, all of our standard features will be there, cleaned up and improved:
Privacy – Goodbye to IP tracking and geolocation
Security – Stop drive-by malware and tracking cookies
History – Cloud based Cocoon history
Mailslots – Disposable email addresses that you control.
Notes – Annotate websites or the Web for later use.

And it wouldn’t be a launch if we didn’t bring something new to the party. We’re introducing three new features to Cocoon:
Favorites – Cloud based Cocoon favorites, accessible wherever you have Cocoon.
Cookie Manager – Get real control over your cookies; delete them, keep them, and completely deny websites from giving them to you in the first place.
Minimized Toolbar – Send the Cocoon toolbar to the bottom of Firefox, where it’s smaller and out of the way.

Of course more features are on the way, in fact we’re working on Facebook blocking even as we speak.

At last, it’s time to take back your privacy and your web experience. Cocoon is about to go live. We welcome you to give us a try, for free, and see what the future of safe browsing looks like.